Water, waste parts of city budget sail through environment committee

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This article was published 28/11/2017 (2881 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the second consecutive day, a council committee endorsed portions of the 2018 City of Winnipeg budget without any changes.

Members of the environment committee gave their nod of approval Tuesday to the water and waste department’s $22.3-million operating and capital budgets, and to the riverbank portion of the planning department budget.

The day before, city councillors on the property and development committee endorsed the rest of the planning department’s $40.4-million budget.

Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman and members of his executive policy committee will consider any changes proposed by the standing committee to the $1-billion budget at a special meeting Dec. 8.

Council will vote on the budget at a special meeting Dec. 12.

The water and waste department is planning an 8.7 per cent increase for 2018, covered by water and sewer bill revenues.

Council diverts 12 per cent of water and sewer bill revenues to offset property taxes, a controversial process council calls a dividend. For 2018, the combined water-sewer dividend amount increases by $2.5 million, to $38.1 million from $35.6 million, as a result of previously-approved water and sewer rate increases.

Coun. Brian Mayes, chairman of the environment committee, said while the practice of taking a dividend has been criticized by some watchdog groups, council has been doing it for 10 years and it’s become an accepted part of the budget process.

Mayes (St. Vital) said without taking the dividend, council would have to increase property taxes by a further seven percentage points, adding no one has proposed an alternative source of funding to make up the revenue.

“If you want to get rid of the dividend, it blows a seven per cent hole in the operating budget; is that what you want?” Mayes told reporters. “No one would ever say, ‘Yeah, that’s what I want.’

“If someone has $38 million they’re able to find, come see me, but it’s the way we’ve been budgeting for a better part of a decade now.”

Winnipeg Transit’s proposed 25-cent fare increase and route service reductions will be reviewed by the public works committee Friday, which will also consider the public works department’s proposed $241.4-million budget, a 4.9 per cent increase over the 2017 plan.

Also Friday, the police board will review the $291.5-million Winnipeg Police Service budget, which is a 1.2 per cent increase over 2017 — the lowest annual budget increase in its history.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca